What were your first symptoms if you did?
I did not have a prodromal phase. I went 0-60 in 2 seconds. Many of the folks I’ve encountered who have had the worst cases did have a prodrome. They say those with a slow onset have a worse prognosis.
My parent’s said they noticed me starting to go off the rails when I was 5. My first diagnosis was ADHD with a huge emphasis on the hyper…
Then as I grew up it was OCD and Anxiety disorders and more ADHD… and on as I grew up… things just got stranger and stranger
when I was 9 when I was noticing that things that were happening to me… wasn’t happening to other kids my age
I started having significant problems functioning at 11 and developed acute psychosis at 23. There were things for a number of years before the break with reality that may have been psychosis but were brief and not overly alarming during this phase… However I struggled in school from the 5th grade till I dropped out of college, and slowly became less able to function in society as I grew older. My prodomal phase fit the description of an Israeli study of 12 years in duration in an article that I saw on this site although not every schizophrenia is the same.
I could never say because things were so messed up at home that anything possibly considered prodromal could have just as likely been caused by the stressful environment and abuse. I didn’t have my first “break” until age 15, and nobody knew what it really was or what was happening. I remember that my head was flooded with all of the horrific things going on in the world, like something or someone was broadcasting this crap into my head and I couldn’t shut it off, I couldn’t sleep and I eventually snapped and had to spend a week in a mental hospital for youth. They diagnosed me with depression at the end of my stay there. Leading up to that event I had been very withdrawn, stopped doing school work, stopped showering or changing my clothes, etc. But again it is impossible to say what was going on exactly.
i got an ADHD diagnose at 25 and got psychotic at 30. What happened in between…who knows. I was psychotic for two years before I got treatment. That somehow erased my memory.
I began ripping of hair and skin when I was eight years old–much to my mother’s horror. I later became an academic hermit when I was in eighth grade and began suffering from the first symptoms of psychosis and OCD. Now I am eight-teen and suffer from psychosis.
Obviously, some where in my distant past, I really pissed off the number eight. Darn you eight.
My academic performance didn’t decline, but I became very paranoid and increasingly less social.
Having read about the prodrome I do see some signs in the, say, 5 years leading up to my first psychosis, but never got in touch with any medical professionals because of them, so these weren’t diagnosed as anything at that time. Eccentricity showed up first. Later some sort of anti-sociality. I wasn’t being a jerk necessarily, but I gradually stopped caring about social relations, I became more and more indifferent towards them, which resulted in the gradual loss of some friends. Then I had what would qualify as a depressive episode (if i compare it to a later depression that was diagnosed as such), about 3 years prior to psychosis. During this time I neglected university, stopped going to classes etc. This was coupled with frequent pot use, so I blamed the lack of motivation and the like on the pot. But yeah I’d barely go out of the house at this time and had some suicidal ideation. Blamed this all on myself and didn’t think of seeing a psychologist for this. A lot of smaller or bigger lies in this period to keep my situation hidden from others. I did manage to snap out of the situation after a year or two, quitting pot and enrolling in a new programme at uni. Things looked much much better for a year or so, but during the summer break I slipped into using some pot again and turned psychotic.
I can never really tell if I had a prodromal phase but guess I must have done in terms of overt psychiatric as opposed to social problems/symptoms.
At 13 nearly 14 social anxiety kicked in . By 15/16 depression . Between 16.75 and 18.33(first admission) depression got worse, academic decline accelerated ,was sleeping in free study periods(at boarding school), early morning waking up but then not wanting to get up, fixation on wanting a sex change ramped up during this period although it had been present to some degree since a few years before puberty kicked in. Generally was less and less able to cope/function. First overdose occurred during this period.Started seeing pdoc during this time but no actual dx till I was admitted.
Looking back I would say it was a gradual process from first overt symptoms to the first diagnosis over the space of about 5 years although I had had social (interaction) problems etc from as far back as I can remember and was very much a loner at prep and public school .
Yes. My very first symptoms in my prodromal phase were depression and confusion. Then came mood swings, loss of functioning and social isolation, and eventually hallucinations and delusions.
I can’t say either because I was in a stressful environment on top of getting high with smoking weed and some speed or crack or cocain here and there, but it was almost always weed and a stressful environment.
I think the stress of bullying and peer group rejection really went a long way to pushing me to be severely mentally ill. Illegal drugs was something I never got into probably due to being a social outcast and therefore not subjected to peer group pressure to try drugs.
Yes i had prodromal phase for about 2 yrs.
Started with low mood ,loss of interest in usual activities. I dont know what is wrong with me. Started mild for 1 year,then i had suffered from severe depression for 1year,then the psychosis,delusions had started.
It’s hard to say, because I have severe depression. But I did have several years of depression before psychosis started.
I did have a prodromal phase. Wish I was smart enough to ask for help then. I thought it was all the acid I was taking at the time. Stupid minnii.
It started with a change in my personality. Dropped out of school bcuz I didn’t feel the same. Stopped hanging out with friends. I knew something was wrong with me and went to a psychiatrist.
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What “things” were happening to you that didnt happen to other kids?
Yes I did. My prodromal phase began at 15 when I became anorexic and then bulimic. Then, went on to become extremely isolative with zero friends throughout high school and college. Dating a man seven years my senior, when I was 17. Skipping classes all of the time and making poor grades. Only graduating high school because I turned in all of my homework on the last day of school and passed.